


Entangling Alliances

by misshallery



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: F/M, ww1 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 09:09:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13245060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misshallery/pseuds/misshallery
Summary: Lachesis is of the opinion that she yields to no one at all.





	Entangling Alliances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarkoftheAsphodel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/gifts).



> A Nagamas gift: Finn/Lachesis, World War I AU, "entangling alliances."

Lachesis carried six glasses at a time in her arms in a bar in Belgium. Two were encased in her curled-up fingers, two were hooked in place by her wrists, and two more rested in the crook of each elbow. Flimsily held in the eyes of most, but in hers, the most stable thing in a room full of soldiers.

All the work she did here was as a war fought in short, sharp spats; temporary, with long term consequences. Born out of necessity, and a little venom.

Necessity and venom for the young man who sat with multiple empty glasses as he waited for her shift to finish, alone and silent. In a starkly dark corner that could have blended in seamlessly with the winter night outside. She wasn’t quite  _fond_ of the harshly-lit pub interior, but she did so hate to stand out in the cold even more.

\---

Finn seemed overly keen to spill tonight compared to all other nights, his tongue loosened with drink and grief and his mood amplified beyond his usual manner. “He was so… dignified, see? A real leader, a real soldier, a real man…”

Lachesis almost brought herself to cut down his empty wittering. She would tell him, with appropriate sharpness,  _if he’s a man, then, are you not? What do you consider yourself? An ape? A lost banshee? An alien species? All men are men. Nothing better, nothing worse._

But she was so well-versed in playing the kind barwoman with all, as was required of her, that it did not instinctively occur to her to say this, only to nod sympathetically at the portrait he described for anyone with ears to hear. “How will you continue?”

“I had thought I would fight on, but.” He dropped to a murmur, tactful even while his head swam, and Lachesis leaned in gracefully. “He has a son, back home. A young boy. No mother, not after the raids. I must ensure his safety.”

Her countenance was lost at the prime moment, the one she was supposed to be prepared for. Perhaps it was a flicker of sympathy that made her hiss in response, “You cannot desert! Quan’s boy must have his own guardians.”

Finn only shook his head. A sombre smile bloomed over his face, born out of hard-won resignation. “No. None like me. That was what he wanted for him. Someone who knows about the dangers his bloodline poses.”

She had played role of the secret enquirer for months now, and so she asked him immediately: “What dangers?”

“I cannot say for sure. But something is brewing on our own side. The Major died for a reason, and I will protect the boy from that reason, as was always intended of me.”

“Did the Quan intend it? Or did you?”

He lifted his chin out of a sense of responsibility more than pride. “No, it was him. Directly. He told me as such.” A new ripple of revelations gripped her. Quan bestowed his own personal roles on his troops? Encouraged a man to break lose when needed? Predicted his own death?

“But you must know who is responsible,” she demanded, her discretion slipping away in the face of this. “And if not, do you not feel invigorated enough to find out? Do you want to find him and end him? Or are you too spineless? Do you not  _care_?”

But Finn was totally unfazed, his lowered inhibitions making himself even more transparent than ever. “Of course, I care. But I know what is beyond my ability, like Quan did. And finding a saboteur is far past that line. I am limited,” he lamented. “So very limited. But if finding and protecting his boy is all I can do, then it’s all I will do.” He rose at that simplisticconclusion. “I have preparations to make. This may take a few days, but I know I must go ahead.... you understand, don’t you?”

There was so much beseeching vulnerability in that question that Lachesis found it easy to tell him exactly what he hoped to hear. It didn’t matter if the words carried truth or not; they rang of it to his ears, and that was enough to sate him. “Yes. Completely.”

\---

Lachesis did feel a twist in the pit of her empty stomach when she made her way back to her accommodation. Guilt? Remorse? A desire to speak with the raw honesty Finn possessed? A pointless emotion, surely. The old radio she stored under one of her loose floorboards was a thing of marvel. It was a tool to report with, one to bargain with, but also so very disposable. She owed the people on the end of the line as little as Finn. All of her will was her own.

That was why she suddenly felt free, for the very first time, to radio in and tell her superiors utter hogwash, how the soldiers were all jovial and war-ready tonight, ready to spend their next weeks, probably months, waiting and holding out for an end that nobody could hold the pen long enough to write. Even Quan’s troops? Oh, especially them. It was just a single, unavoidable death, a bullet that flew into the wrong heart. Tragic, but one-dimensional. Carrying no further implications. An impromptu funeral service would be quite enough, yes. A moment for their martyr without a fathomable cause.

It was also why she made her own preparations that night, claiming all her rations at once, darning the tears in her well-worn travelling clothes and making vague inquiries into where one might hide a military family’s last one. That, and the intrigue she felt when she had spoken to Finn. The intrigue that she was free to follow wherever it took her.

All the while, she kept to herself. She would have no ‘plans’ to share with Finn when he inevitably came looking for her tomorrow night, nor did she have any intention of joining his on anything but her own terms. She had carved out this life herself and would continue it that way, forging entangling alliances with no one.


End file.
